Weaving Sacred Stories: French Choir Tapestries and the Performance of Clerical Identity

Laura Weigert's Weaving Sacred Stories: French Choir Tapestries and the Performance of Clerical Identity examines biographical tapestry cycles in the context of their original use in order to better understand the function of medieval cathedral interiors. The author pinpoints a seminal moment in the history of such tapestries (1450–1530) in France, and argues that during this period, social, economic, and ecclesiastic forces so aligned themselves that the production of these tapestries can be read as documents of one of the most powerful segments of contemporary society: the appointed Colleges of Canons for each of the cathedrals under discussion. Many of the elements that would contribute to a standard art history text on painting cycles, such as information on the artist or school responsible for production, are not available for these tapestries. However, extensive information on the patrons, viewers, placement, and function of these objects survives. Weigert uses this material to weave her own targeted and specific contextual account of the tapestries that locates "the meanings of these monumental stories in the interaction between the woven strips of words and pictures and the environment in which they were seen" (2).

Weaving Sacred Stories is divided into five chapters followed by four appendices. The study begins with a methodological introduction, "Setting the Stage," in which Weigart sets the parameters for the objects in her study. She includes a history of textiles in church ornamentation, and notes that a booming economy encouraged the development of a tapestry industry and enabled lavish patronage during this period.

The main body of the book consists of three case studies highlighting the surviving tapestry cycles of Tornai (the Lives of Piat and Eleutherius), LeMans (the Life of Gervasius and Protasius), and Auxerre (the Life of Stephen), which were displayed in their respective choirs on important liturgical occasions. For the Tornai cycle, Weigert explores how the lives of these local early Christian saints were manipulated to become exemplars for the contemporary Canons, and the tapestries served to make their third- and fifth-century stories part of a contiguous narrative of Christian Tornai that extended to the time of the donation.

For the LeMans cycle, Weigart employs the wealth of documentary evidence that survives on the donation of the tapestries by the canon Martin Guerande. Gervasius and Protasius were identical twins, and Weigart asserts this duality allows their pictorial biography to become "a metaphor for unity in diversity" (53). Guerande appears in the final scene of the cycle along with the papal legate Philip of Luxembourg. Weigart argues that the tapestries celebrated Philip and Martin's work to promote a unified Christian church despite the political difficulties between the French monarchy and the papacy ca. 1500.

Weigart's case studies close with the Life of Stephen from Auxerre, which was commissioned by Bishop Jean Baillet. Some of Stephen's relics were preserved in the cathedral, and the cycle functions to connect the annual cycle of local veneration of this first martyr to his larger cult and to emphasize his role as a successor to Christ — a program that extended to Baillet's other donations to the cathedral, including plate and vestments.

Weigert concludes by drawing some broader conclusions about the cycles. She notes that they all deal with the foundation of the early Church and reflect the frequent movements of saints' relics during this period. The tapestries connect these early Christian histories and objects with their contemporary settings in order to translate the spiritual purity of the past to present-day French ecclesiastical politics. Weaving Sacred Stories also includes an appendix that lists the surviving and documented choir tapestries from this period, and three additional appendices that transcribe the vernacular tituli of the cycles under discussion.

Weigert's well-documented analysis reveals the busy, subdivided complexes that were the interiors of medieval cathedrals as...